Bernardin de St. Pierre

by Arvède Barine

The colony was situated on the banks of the Amazon, because, as a child, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre had told himself a story of how he embarked for the Amazon, and there founded a republic. It was above all distinguished for a fabulous abundance of everything. On fête days the citizens took their places at public tables, at which were served whole whales, without counting an infinity of other dishes. Contempt of systems had there produced some almost incredible scientific and industrial successes; people went about in balloons formed like fish, and capable of being steered; one saw "camels laden with provisions, led by negroes, and sledges drawn by reindeer." All the inhabitants of this favoured spot were good, virtuous, and happy.

It was an inoffensive and harmless mania. In the end I really believe that Bernardin de Saint-Pierre was no longer surly and bellicose, except in the Institute. There he certainly was so, but he paid dearly for it. What did they not impute to him for crime? They reproached him for sending his son to college, his daughter to Écouen, after having written against public education in France. It is what the adversaries of our university system do every day; we blame and we submit, because we cannot do otherwise. They reproached him with having been servile in his intercourse with Napoleon, whom he compared in an academical oration to an eagle "advancing in the very centre of the storm." He certainly would have done better not to flatter the master, but he was in such good company! We pass over other absolutely absurd grievances. His enemies returned his blows with interest, and, being vindictive, he died without making peace with them.

In the month of November, 1813, being then in Paris, he felt that his life was ebbing; several apoplectic attacks had reduced his strength. He hastened to return to his home at Eragny, to see again his garden, the forest of Saint-Germain, the banks of the Oise, and there he slowly passed away, filling his eyes with the splendours of the world. He awaited death with serenity, as it becomes a sage to await the accomplishment of a law of nature, talking peacefully with those around him of the terrors which it generally inspires. He said that our fear of death arises from the fact that "the thought of it does not enter familiarly enough into our education." It is always spoken of as something strange, as a misfortune happened to some one else; we are even surprised at it, so that there seems to be nothing natural in an act which is being accomplished ceaselessly. Listen to the history of a malady he adds: "I do not believe ever to have heard of one in which death did not come from the fault of the sick person, or from the doctor; never from the will of God."

His heart never failed him except in seeing his dear Désirée weep. "I see her," he said, "incessantly occupied in holding back my soul which is ready to escape." For the last time he had himself carried into his garden. A Bengal rose-bush was still covered with flowers, but the winter had turned its leaves yellow. "To-morrow," said the dying man to his wife, "the yellow leaves will no longer be there." On the 21st of January, 1814, the earth was white with snow, the air misty, and a cold wind shook the bare trees. At mid-day the sun pierced through the mist, and fell upon the face of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, who died breathing the name of God. He was seventy-seven years old. His death passed unobserved in the midst of the great events which were then agitating France.

He had intrusted his reputation and his works to his wife; he could not have left them in better hands. The charming Désirée has been the faithful and tender guardian of his memory, a guardian sometimes blind; but who would think of reproaching her with that? She married again, later, an ardent admirer of her first husband, Aimé Martin, the author of the great biography of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, and the indefatigable editor of his works. Together they raised an altar to his memory. One is obliged to challenge Aimé Martin's romantic and enthusiastic biography, but one could not read without being touched, the pages in which the youthful love affairs of the hero are poetised and magnified out of all proportion, for those details can only have been supplied by his widow. Désirée idealised for posterity even his most vulgar adventures.

The man was soon forgotten, and then was invented the legend of which we have spoken at the beginning of this book. The public very much dislikes to admit that there can be any disagreement between a writer and his works. It made of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre a reflection of his writings, a very gentle and universally benevolent man without any fault except being too over-sensitive. The obstinate combatant of the Academy became transformed in the imagination of the crowd into an easy-going man, good-natured and tearful, until his outline was effaced from men's memory. Nothing remains to-day but an undefined shadow, a vague something, and this something still finds means to have an insipid expression. It is a good thing to restore to the original his angry brow and bitter expression.

An analogous disaster awaited almost all his works. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre enjoyed the dangerous honour of having disciples much greater than himself. His unobtrusive halo was lost sight of in the glitter of Chateaubriand and the radiance of Lamartine. He assisted at the literary triumphs of the first; but instead of rendering each other mutual homage, master and disciple treated each other coldly. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre could not without impatience allow "the most covetous of honour among his heirs," according to the expression of Sainte-Beuve, to throw him into the shade. Chateaubriand, at first eulogistic, was not long before he became irritated at hearing malevolent critics compare the elegant simplicity of his predecessor to his own pomp of style. Towards the year 1810, some one having asked Bernardin if he knew Chateaubriand, the old man replied, "No, I do not know him; I have in my time read some extracts of the Génie du Christianisme; his imagination is too strong." They certainly became acquainted after the nomination of Chateaubriand to the Academy in 1811. We do not find that anything resulted from it, but the following lines from the Memoires d'outre Tombe: "A man whose brush I have admired and always shall admire, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, was wanting in judgment, and unfortunately his character was on a level with his judgment. How many pictures are spoilt in the Études de la Nature by the writer's limited intelligence and want of elevation of soul!"

Lamartine, on the contrary, was the most grateful of pupils, always eager to acknowledge his master, and make the best of him. Paul and Virginia had been the favourite book of his childhood, and the poet paid his debt royally to the favourite volume by giving it a place of honour in two of his own works. Jocelyn read and re-read Paul and Virginia. Graziella is lost from having heard it only once. Her soul, until then dormant, revealed itself to her in the soul of Virginia. Her beautiful impassive face becomes suddenly overspread with the stormy tints and lines of passion. One hour has sufficed to transform an innocent and joyous child into a palpitating woman, ripe for love and its sufferings, and it is Bernardin de Saint-Pierre who has accomplished this miracle.

It was all in vain; such glorious homage could not protect the bulk of his work against an indifference which became ever more and more profound. The reputation of the author of the Études de la Nature has dispersed in our day like smoke, so much so indeed that in establishing the literary relation of Chateaubriand and Lamartine, their direct precursor is usually suppressed; they jump over him to J. J. Rousseau. Every one of us has forgotten what we owe to Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. Maurice de Guérin said in 1832, after having read the Études de la Nature: "This book sets at liberty and illuminates a sense which we all possess, but which is generally obscure and without activity; the sense which gathers up for us physical beauties, and presents them to the soul." It has not been given to many writers to awaken amongst the masses a sleeping faculty, and the event should be of sufficient importance for us not to lose the remembrance of it. But in our day we are accustomed to observe this sense which "gathers up physical beauties" active within us, and increasing without intermission the treasure of our sensations of incomparable enjoyments. This all seems so natural to us, that we have no more gratitude for him who "set at liberty and illuminated" this precious faculty in the souls of our grandfathers and grandmothers.

There is the same ingratitude amongst modern writers who do not seem to have remembered what they owe to him. Not content with having loved nature with a contagious tenderness, Bernardin has bequeathed to his successors the first grand models of descriptive landscapes, and restored to the French language a picturesque vocabulary of which it had been deprived for two hundred years. These are two immense services by which he has exercised a great influence on the literature of the nineteenth century. Without the Études de la Nature not only René and Atala, Jocelyn and Graziella, but the Génie du Christianisme and the Méditations would have been different from what they are. Chateaubriand and Lamartine would have followed a somewhat different bent, and the whole of the modern school would have followed their lead. It is a very great honour to have given impulse to the descriptive literature of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, if Bernardin de Saint-Pierre had not possessed another title to glory his name would no longer be known except to literary men.